This should be obvious as to which one is bad or good... well... unless you like clunky old mainframes...

iPhones:
Making some fixes on my spin entry with my spin coach. I'm gonna see if the problem STAYS fixed when I come back to him again. And once I'm assured it's fixed, I'll then show it to secondary coach.

Mainframe:
Unfortunately since the fix is put in, I had to do the sit spin next with the fixed spin entry. Let's just say I had practically NO UMMPH going into the sit spin. (Yeah, if you must know, I rely on winding to get the momentum to go into the sit spin rather than to use the FO edge to do the work. Bad me!!! ) So I'm now relearning how to do the sit spin again!

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Mainframes kick *** when you work with hundreds of thousands of records at a time...

iPhone: No Skating Due to Snow. Had to cancel all lessons and practices.

Mainframe: Sold skates on eBay and my new ones are in - now to get over to that side of town.

__________________

iphone: (actually mine is an itouch): Have been feeling the benefits of my off-ice working out & lifting weights. I can actually hold a (semi) decent sit spin for the first time ever! And can tell that my core is stronger too.

Mainframe: Coach suggested retesting my Paso in 2 weeks! I hadn't even done it w/ music since failed test 1/11....was taking a break from it & thought I had until late March to test again. So....it pretty much sucked in my lesson & to be honest I don't know how I feel about trying it again so soon.

ETA: just called coach--he's decided to wait until March based on my crappy lesson today. That's okay, I have enough on my plate at the moment. So now I can gear up for March.

Mainframe Missed the a.m. session this morning due to just flat out being too tired. Bought onto one of DD's p.m. sessions. Jumps were meh and spins were okay. Tried the back-sit and couldn't get more than 1-2 revs...mostly fell over.

I Phone DD and I worked on our family spotlight. I'm letting her choregraph most of it. It went pretty well and it's mostly done. Coach is going to work on it with us tomorrow and Friday. DD even used her Starbucks gift card to treat me (and her) to a coffee afterwards because according to her I did such a good job.

Mixed Competed for the first time ever this past Sat. I skated mostly clean even landed my flip However I missed the loop on the salchow-loop combo. Bums me out, because I've never missed it in practice. I went first which was perfect, because I didn't have time to get nervous. I was worried I might have constipation face, but coach said that I looked like I was in the zone. All in all we were pretty happy. I ended up coming in 6th of 6. My program did not have the difficulty of the other programs. So that is something to work on for next time (end of Feb).

Mainframe

Still no skating for me. Physio reckons maybe two weeks due to ligament damage in ankle I had several comps this month and I don't think they'll refund the entry fees. Maybe i'll have to go and just skate very badly!

Did go to rink today and it was quite interesting watching everyone - but not as much fun as skating.

If you can skate, you might as well go (especially if they are local so you won't save travel/hotel fees by not going). At the adult competition 2 weeks ago, one of the gold ladies was hurt. She did her program to get it out since it's new, but only did waltz jumps for all her jumps and left out positions on a lot of her spins. And we cheered really loud for every waltz jump, they were lovely.

No skating for me either. I twisted and re-injured the ankle I hurt in October. It's a little swollen and hurts, but I can walk on it. I've got it in my brace and I'm RICE-ing it. I don't think it will knock me out for more than a week or so this time, so I'll be OK for Easterns in a few weeks as long as I take it easy between now and then. I can suck it up, skate the week of Easterns, compete, and take another week or two off after that before gearing up for ANs if I have to (my brother's wedding is the weekend after Easterns, so I won't have time to skate that week anyway).

__________________
2010-2011 goals:
Pass Junior MIF test
Don't break anything

IPhone - started to get some nice flight on my waltz and toeloops. Not so much improvement on the sal, but that was never my best jump.

Started working on my new program - mostly learning new bits of footwork, we don't have the layout yet. I love my music - Pocketful of Sunshine.

Coach asked me if I can do brackets, so we went over them. FI brackets were pretty easy, so they are in the program!

Mainframe - end of season show is early this year - Monday after the Winter Challenge competition. I'm going to be so crazy getting ready for both.

__________________
It's all about the dress!

IPhone: Felt like the Waltz-8 was improving this week. Coach may think differently, but until she sees it, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Loop! Big and clean. Flip was nice, too.

Axel attempts - stood up on one that was one-footed, felt a little cheated but one of the coaches (not mine) liked it. Of course it happened once and I couldn't duplicate the feat to save my life.

Mainframe: Lutz continues to have a mind of its' own which was not a good thing this week. I think it needs a lobotomy.

Spins...meh. Left knee still bothering me at times.

No skating til Monday for me. Out of town starting tomorrow to take daughter on a college visit, and there aren't even any public sessions when we get back. If nothing else that will give the knee plenty of time to rest, I guess.

I downloaded a new iphone app, "ifitness" which shows tons of exercises & how to do them, has a place to log your workouts, add your own custom exercises, log your weight/measurements, and probably more I haven't figured out yet. Seems like it will be a good tool when I finish with the sessions I signed up for w/ the trainer--I'll still have something to help guide me.

IPhone DD and I worked on our spotlight with the coach. It's almost there. We changed a bit of the music and it took awhile to get it worked out. Worked with coach on upgrading the spins in my program. Sit spin/upright is now backsit/forward sit. Camel/backspin is now camel/sit/upright(maybe backspin). Trying to figure out what the 3rd spin should be. Now that I have the arms figured out the backspin is way better.

Mainframe Landing the flip, but it is very "S- ey" according to coach. Lutz, I am chickening out on it just about every time.

I-Phone:
-sit spins were perfected and back in my comfort zone
-Sit change sit has made a few pleasant re appearances...I think I tend to over think that stupid spin when really it's simplier than I make it.
-Layback-Arms are now in proper placement and over my head rather than to the side...feels alot more like a layback.
-Backspin is making it's return as well...sure it was a bit wonky at first, but overtime it became easier and more consitant
-Flying broken leg spin- getting more of the 'flying' aspect. Near the end of the session, it was really behaving
-Flying broken leg/sit- Although it's still a abit slow, it's getting back to being 'easy' for me.
-Lutz(I worked on alot today)- Back to it's sweet ole self
-2sal attempts...okay so I definately have the rotation...it's the landing on one foot aspect that isn't cooperating. I'm getting much better with using my knees and rubber band legs to jump.
-Artistic runthrough....very nice
-Showcase programme...I mapped out the choreography in a way that works..wasn't able to do a full out runthrough because music isn't on a cd yet.
-I got a hug from one of my LTS students...I <3 hugs!
-I did things alittle out of sequence...I did a couple warmup strokes and then went right into spins....obviously it sort of worked because alot of my spins made improvements.



Mainframe
-Camel spins-Very slow, does not feel at all like a spin, wonky and crappy
-Axel- for some reason on that ice...my axel just doesn't like me. When I skated Friday I was this [] close to landing it....but today it was more like this [ ].
-My adductor muscles in my legs were REALLY hurting from my Friday practice...basicly in simpler words my crotch was hurting...but I trying to show that my education was worth every penny...hehe.

__________________
[i]Beauty May Be in the Eye of the Beholder
But passion is in the heart of a skater.[/I]

To make up for my lack of attendance at freestyle sessions lately, I went to public session this evening.

I worked on deep edges and footwork mostly. It was too crowded to do much jumping, but I did manage a spin or two.

I really, really wish I had a good back spin. I go into one, travel like mad, but then I can step into a forward scratch with some oomph. The feel of the back-to-forward transition is very rewarding, but knowing how poor the back spin done first takes away some enjoyment. The combo is seriously flawed.

I had sharpened my skates before the session, and it helped really deep edge work. I like the feeling of a good lean. The ice was hard, but the bite was good.

For some reason, the entire two hour skate was done clockwise at the rink. I like using a RBI bracket these days when I'm skating clockwise, so I got lots of practice doing them.

__________________
Bill Schneider

Mainframe:

Of all things to work on... this is one of my least favorite... the alt. back crossovers from the Bronze Moves tests. I'm so out of practice on this one!!!

(For Friday) Secondary coach is sick! No lesson this week.

iPhone:
Friday ended up being practice on whatever i wanted to work on and at this time it's the 3 turns and the spin entry. I did give maybe 5 minutes on the ina bauer try before giving up...

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Mainframe Road were terrible so did not get to the early a.m. session. Bought onto one of DD's p.m. sessions instead. Crowded because lots of kids buying on extra hours(despite bad weather) for the competition this weekend. Lutz - still chickening out on it. Flip -still s-ey. Was fooling around on Saturday trying to do an inside spread eagle the other way and ended up doing an ina bauer. Tried replicating it today and it was very curvy.

I Phone DD and I worked on our Family Spotlight. We've got all the little details figured out and it's really coming together. We picked up one of props tonight and the final part of our costume came in the mail today. We're up against a Dad/Daughter duo from our rink and 3 kid cousins from another rink. My non-skating DD came up with something cool that we incorporated - a play on our last name and people that know us will get the joke. hee hee

Ran through the parts of my program with the new spins and seemed to go well. I can get 3-4 revs on the backsit, but it needs to be lower. Camel/sit was pretty good. Coach's husband is off work this week so she can give me a lesson on Thursday during the day - he can watch their little girl. No lesson on Friday due to the competition.

Hi this is for my lesson and practice last week (working full time now, so can only just find time to post on this forum now)

Friday
Iphone

For once, no spins at my lesson. My coach agreed not to work on spins just for that lesson. I practised on change foot spin after lesson, and somehow ended up with about 25 revolutions whilst doing the last forward spin. Still did not know I did it.

Did 25 revolutions on my corkscrew spin. This is my favourite spin ever.

Forward and backward crossovers are both good.

Left foot 3 turn is good.

Seeing that getting better on my half flip, coach taught me the two half flip. Finally got it in the end after several run throughs.

Toe loop is getting there.

Salchow is getting better.

Made new friends at the rink, also my coach's students (in a group of 3). They are doing the very very basic level 1, and wonder how I make everything look so easy. One of them commented that I picked up the skills fast, and that my leg muscles are very flexible.

For sit spin, a few times tried to get down low and managed to stay there.

Mainframe

Need more work on right foot 3 turns.

Nearly knocked a coach over whilst doing backward crossovers on the right feet. Luckily, coach pulled me in time, to stop the accident from happening.

Needs to make sure not wait so long before I did the salchow jump.

Still working on the scratch spin, the holding leg position.

Needs to get leg higher on the right foot spiral.

Backspin still sucks. Cannot get more than 1 rev.

Sit spin, fell 3 times. Did manage to get down low, but still not low enough most of the time.

Sunday
Iphone

Did some basic skating. The 6:30 p.m. session that I went to was not very crowded.

Double 3s were great.

Sit spin, did feel some difference, at least now feel that my stomach and leg muscles are both pulling. One time managed to come up with a cross foot spin of 8 revs.

Forward and backward crossovers seemed to be more powerful and also with more speed.

Mohawks- well, getting there.

Change foot spin- not too bad overall, not sure if I managed one time on the last forward spin with 26 revolutions.

Jumps: getting there. Worked on half flip, the two half flip, toe loop and salchow.

Mainframe

Ended up four times for sit spin on my bum, when I tried to get down low.

Needs to get leg higher on right foot spiral.

Loop jump- not sure about the rotation. I think that I only landed half the jump and cheated the other half. Coach will have to check on this on Friday when I have lesson with her.

Aborted practice at 8:15 p.m. as rink suddenly swamped in with a group of people, and I started to get leg cramps.

londonicechamp

Haven't posted on one of these threads for ages! We had a "turns" lesson as DH wasn't there.

Bad - checking forward turns is not good.

Good - coach gave me lots of checking exercises.

Bad - "how are your back turns?" asks coach slyly. BI3's non-existent (as she knows perfectly well!) So..."let's try BI rockers!" After several tries, I remind her that my BI3s haven't arrived in the mail yet and she does remember this, right? BI counters much closer than BI rockers - as coach points out, that's because the feel of a counter check isn't as much as a rocker check, and with my "checking issues", they're easier to cheat!

Good - BO3s (both sides) were pronounced "nice". Not fast, but nice. I'll take that.

Bad - FI counters (the only sort I can fudge) were being cheated with the upper body (explaining why I can't do them except from a FO-FI change of edge).

Good - lots of exercises to eliminate the need to pre-rotate the upper body and be able to do the FI counters normally.

A really good lesson!

On the way back to the gate at the end of the lesson, we were trying to count off all the different types of turns and turning steps and got to 88 (?) - 8 each of 3s, brackets, rockers, counters, loops, twizzles, open mohawks, closed mohawks, ditto choctaws, and "cross choctaws" (which I'd never heard of and asked to see - they looks scary!!) Can anyone think of any others?

i Phone DD & I ran through the our spotlight with the props today. Went very well and I think we are ready for Sunday. Coach added to 6 seconds to my program (1.49 vs 1.43) and we tried it out tonight. Whoa! What a difference. Not racing to keep up is much nicer. Spins were good tonight. FLIP - whoot! Feel like I made some serious progress on it tonight. The free foot position is much improved.

Mainframe Only had 30 seconds to work on ina bauer with Coach. It is still really curvy. I can get it to straighten out for about 6 inches. Still chickening out on the Lutz.

iPhone: Got to work with primary coach on BI3 and power pulls.

Mainframe: Too bad they haven't improved since the last time I had a lesson on it. (This is just another indicator that I am in need of a LOT more practice ice time than what I have now...)

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

iPhone - Choreographing new routine in yesterday's lesson, got to make my coach skate for a change while we walked through the new part of the routine. I'm using the same music from last time (Atlantis - because I like the music, and heck, I've got a dress to go with it) . . . but I'm cutting in an additional (faster) section from another track on the album, just to speed things up a bit. Plus, after I got home and cut everything together, actually tweaked the old "slow" (translate - "Dragging!") part a bit so now it is a lot easier to skate to.

Had a good bit of ice time over the past weekend - THIS close to getting a sitspin. Just have to be careful not to let my left side collapse as I enter the spin, and . . . be brave!! Scratch spins more centered, and getting some good speed. Loops getting more lift to them, starting to get a good feel for them. DS (the one who figure skates) was mildly impressed by my progress. Says jumps look "different" and "better." (this is the equivalent of "raving" for him, so made me feel pretty good!).

Oh, almost forgot to mention, our local news sent some people out to film some stuff in connection with the Olympics - they tried their hand at speed skating, figure skating (hilarious - they did "pairs" while we judged) and hockey. DS and I participated, not sure how much on-screen time we got, but it was pretty fun anyway!

Mainframe - didn't get much time last night to actually work on stuff in detail since most of the time was spent choreographing. Going back tonight for a group lesson, should get more of a workout then!

P.S. Love, love, love working on a new routine - really gives me a renewed sense of perspective!!

Iphone: Coach liked the progress on the waltz-8 this morning, and really didn't have any major issues with the consecutive edges. I'm starting to think maybe we'll test these soon, but am letting my coach suggest a testing date. The idea is to actually PASS a moves test sometime in my lifetime.

Loop and flip went well in my lesson. Camel-sit is starting to happen at least once every practice.

Mainframe: Lutz needed a lobotomy again today. Or maybe I do. Serious upper body pre-rotation issues happening and I had no timing on when I was supposed to pick in. Ugh.

Scratch spins, both front and back were way off today. Which was weird because the harder spins were working okay. Go figure.

I have it and use it from time to time, along with the app from Women's Health. Key word is "use it" as that part is less and less for me lately (school is more and more LOL).

Mainframes: no skating because of the snow....we just got dug out yesterday and I won't be able to skate today/tomorrow because of my son's delayed/belated birthday party (if I'm not here to supervise, his dad won't let him have it). Oh the sacrifices we make for our kids! Should be ok to skate on Sunday (haha lesson time).

I seriously need to start working out again!

__________________
Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Mainframe - I've decided to scratch out of the end of season show this year, as well as the Winter Challenge. There's only four weeks left, and I just really feel like I want skating lessons with my coach instead of spending our time working on choreography. I also don't really have anything new to show off that is strong enough to put in a program.


iPhone - spent the last half of lesson working on stuff, got some good notes for the sitspin. waltz jump has springs back, coach liked the pop, and sal wasn't bad.

__________________
It's all about the dress!

iPhone:
Actually managed to make public skate at the rink last weekend! Yay. Spins are still improving. Which is not saying much. But I figured out the general idea on that day of doing a scratch vs. a stork spin: keeping my hip open! Didn't get anywhere near a real scratch, but at least started getting used to trying.

Went to the office afterward and asked if they'd consider an adults-only public session. The girl gave me the phone number for the manager, so eventually I'll call him. I just had had too much and had to ask--no, I begged...had to yell at some kids for KICKING A QUARTER AROUND THE ICE. Though I did refrain from saying what I wanted to say, which was, "If I'm spinning and that quarter flies under my blade, I promise you that I will NOT be the only here bloody and in pain."

However.

Mainframe (big, oooooold, Windows mainframe that's missing half the hardware and has a virus):
It seems the fates do not want me to skate. I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to afford to get back to lessons soon, even if I had to take the cheaper ones not with my rink buddies.

Uh, no. On Tuesday I hit a patch of ice on the way to work and my car decided to go skating. In a really big way. My car is not very good at skating, and so my car has been totalled. Aside from the fact that my insurance is going to go through the roof since, y'know, technically they had to call it my fault, and aside from the fact that I'm hoping the two people who hit my car as it went sailing through their lanes (oh boy did we travel*) will not try to sue me, I also will have medical bills (I wasn't injured beyond some scrapes and bruises on my face, and a lovely concussion from being knocked out, but of course they had to load me into an ambulance and take me to the hospital and x-ray my spine and do a CAT scan). This on top of medical bills I had before. My life is pretty much over...I'm probably going to be eating ramen noodles and sitting at home for the next year. So I guess I'll be relegated to the public sessions only for a very long time. GRRR. AND I was excited to have Monday off because I was planning on hitting an empty public session, but I have a feeling my doctor would have kittens if I proposed it, considering my concussion...

I WANNA SKATE!!! Dammit.

Needless to say, I have not yet called the rink manager, but I'll get around to it...

*We're talking travel, like, I shoulda got some frequent flyer miles. I tell this story to everybody because it's so wild and I got so lucky to not only be alive, but barely hurt. I was on a freeway with three lanes in each direction. I was in the westbound lanes, either in the middle or leftmost lane (I don't remember anything from when I first started sliding, so I don't know which lane I was in). My car slid a while while I tried to correct each way as it went (we're talking FLYING, as I was going about 70 mph--it'd just started snowing so nobody on the road was going slow, thinking it wasn't slippery yet. I'd correct, it'd go flying that way, so I'd correct the other way) and finally hit an abandoned vehicle at the right shoulder (yeah, what're the odds that I hit the ONE abandoned vehicle?). I got knocked out at this point, and my car bounced off the abandoned vehicle, flew back across the three westbound lanes, through the median, and across the three eastbound lanes; two people hit me in the rear on my travel across the eastbound lanes and I stopped on the outside shoulder. So I wake up, my glasses are gone, I can't remember anything that happened before I started sliding so I didn't know if I was on the highway I was on (it happened right after I got on from another highway) or if I was still on the previous one, and I can't see where I am without my glasses, so I'm calling 911 and telling them I got in an accident but I don't know where I am and meanwhile am hoping they can triangulate my phone or something...craziness all around.

How horrible - don't worry about the insurance - that's why you pay for it. Many companies have accident forgiveness if you're usually a good driver, so just call your agent and ask. Get well soon. (((hugs)))

__________________

iPhone:

VERY good lesson today!!!

Looks like at least 3 of my bad skating habits are finally getting fixed. One of them is definitely on my target to fix for this year -- my bad "turn the foot" forward spin entry problem!!! Looks like my spin coach's coaching magic is working on me, since secondary coach looked at it and after a couple of bad tries, I finally got "OH OH OH!!! She STEP STRAIGHT right into a FO edge!!! OMG!!! Do it again!!!" (And I did!!!)

I told my spin coach that until I can do this in my sleep that I would like to keep working on that spin entry. I want to see if secondary coach is happy with it. Apparently, he's definitely done his job!!! We'll see if he can now get back my sit spin using this new entry and maybe get a camel spin out of me?

Also fixed is the toe-waltz habit!!! (The second of my bad skating habits!!!) It's still inconsistent since most times I'm sleep skating and therefore NOT concentrating on what I should be doing. But if I concentrate on what I should be doing, I usually do a REAL toe loop and not a toe-waltz!!!

Third of my bad skating habit that I started developing again that got fixed is a "spiny salchow." I now know how it feels to check after the FO3 and therefore know when I'm doing it right.

Loop jump had minor tweaks and towards the end of the lesson, I not only landed it, it had a decent flow on the jump landing!!!

Fixed waltz jump is definitely getting some hang time!!!

Mainframe:
Fixed salchow still feels unnatural though... but gotta get used to it! My guess is that it's fixed so that I would get better height on the salchow.

Too bad fixed waltz jump is not 100% fixed yet!!! I want it fixed and in my unconscious!!! Wanna get a good foundation for that axel I've been after!!!

Secondary coach wants me to start keeping a notebook! Uh oh!!!

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!